Even tourists, Boersma said, can wreak havoc on penguins. At Punta Tombo, Argentina, for example, vehicles ran over five penguins in January 2007.

"The visitors who flock to Punta Tombo are loving the penguins to death," she wrote.

Poster Species?

Boersma would rather see humans' affection for penguins focused into efforts to improve the birds' marine environments.

"If people really know that we're having this kind of effect on penguins, we might change how we do business," she said.

But Boersma isn't just interested in raising awareness.

She advocates the creation of an international institution that regularly monitors penguins to gain insight into changes in the ocean food chain and long-term climate variation. Such an effort would make the seabirds "marine sentinels," she said.

"If we can understand more about them, we presumably could reduce the problems that penguins and other species are having—and maybe save ourselves," she said.

The idea of using penguins as a poster species is not novel, according to David Ainley, an ecologist and penguin expert with ecological consulting firm H.T. Harvey & Associates in San Jose, California.

For example, Ainley noted the California-based Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. government in 2006 to list ten penguin species under the Endangered Species Act.

"Because penguins are so well known, [the center's] agenda was to use them as a kind of handle to increase awareness of climate change," he said.

Ainley said Boersma makes a "nice" case that penguins could serve as useful, attractive environmental monitors. In fact, several Antarctic penguin species are already monitored under the Antarctic Treaty System—a series of agreements among states operating on the continent—he noted.

Bowermaster, the explorer and writer, said any studies that highlight changes in the marine environment, especially those in Antarctica due to global climate change, are valuable.